Marine cargo vessel

ABSTRACT

A MARINE CARGO VESSEL HAS ONE OR TWO HULLS, IN WHICH LATTER CASE IT WILL BE OF THE CATAMARAN TYPE. THE HOLLOW HULLS EACH HAVE AN INSIDE, AN OUTSIDE AND A WATERLINE TO WHICH THEY ARE SUBMERGED IN AN AMBIENT BODY OF WATER. DECKS ARE LOCATED INSIDE THE HULLS AND AT LEAST SOME OF THEM ARE CONSTRUCTED AS FLOODABLE BASINS LOCATED AT LEVELS DIFFERENT FROM THAT OF THE WATERLINE. ONE OR MORE FLOODABLE UPRIGHT SHAFTS ARE PROVIDED IN THE HULL OR HULLS, OR BETWEEN THEM, AND EXTEND THROUGH THE DECKS, AND GATES WHICH CAN BE FLUID-TIGHTLY SEALED ARE PROVIDED AT THE LEVEL OF THE WATERLINE AND OF THE DECKS SO THAT THE INTERIOR OF THE SHAFT CAN COMMUNICATE BOTH WITH THE AMBIENT BODY OF WATER AND WITH THE RESPECTIVE DECKS. THE LEVEL OF A BODY OF WATER IN THE SHAFT CAN BE RAISED BETWEEN THE LEVEL OF THE EXTERIOR WATERLINE AND THE LEVEL OF THE RESPECTIVE DECKS, SO THAT FLOATABLE CONTAINERS CAN BE CONVEYED BY FLOTATION BETWEEN THE WATERLINE AND THE RESPECTIVE DECKS, AND VICE VERSA.

llnited States Patent 11 1 Vern ede et al.

1451 Feb. 4, 1975 1 MARINE CARGO VESSEL [75] Inventors: Louis AntoineVernede; Leopold Nitzki, both of Bremen; Heinrich Liedke,Bremen-Osterholz; Friedrich S'chrtir, Bremen, all of Germany [73]Assignee: AktiengesellschaftWeser,

Bremen, Germany 22 Filed: Feb. 13,1974

21 Appl. No.: 442,138

Related U.S. Application Data [63] Continuation-in-part of Ser. No.138,951, April 30,

1971, Pat. No. 3,835,802.

[30] Foreign Application Priority Data May 2, 1970 Germany 2021653 [52]U.S. C1. 114/435, 214/13 [51] Int. Cl 1863b 35/44 [58] Field of Search1l4/ 2638, 114/435, 73; 214/12-13, 15 R; 61/64 65 [56] References CitedUNITED STATES PATENTS 3,390,530 7/1968 Toben 61/65 3,587,505 6/1971Wells et a1. 114/435 FOREIGN PATENTS OR APPLICATIONS 487,753 5/1970Switzerland 114/435 Primary Examiner-Trygve M. Blix AssistantExaminer-Jesus D. Sotelo Attorney, Agent, or Firm-Michael S. Striker[57] ABSTRACT A marine cargo vessel has one or two hulls, in whichlatter case it will be of the catamaran type. The hollow hulls each havean inside, an outside and a waterline to which they are submerged in anambient body of water. Decks are located inside the hulls and at leastsome of them are constructed as floodable basins located at levelsdifferent from that of the waterline. One or more floodable uprightshafts are provided in the hull or hulls, or between them, and extendthrough the decks, and gates which can be fluid-tightly sealed areprovided at the level of the waterline and of the decks so that theinterior of the shaft can communicate both with the ambient body ofwater and with the respective decks. The level of a body of water in theshaft can be raised between the level of the exterior waterline and thelevel of the respective decks, so that floatable containers can beconveyed by flotation between the waterline and the respective decks,and vice versa,

7 Claims, 6 Drawing Figures PATENTEDFEB'4I975 3.863.585

sum 1 or 3 I I /(l m I1 I 2 mil IN PATEHTED FEB M975 sum 2 OF 3 MARINECARGO VESSEL CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION This application isa continuation-in-part of our copending application Ser. No. 138,951,which was filed on Apr. 30, I971 now US. Pat. No. 3,835,802.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION This invention relates to a marine cargovessel in general, and in particular to a marine cargo vessel which iscapable of transporting floatable containers that can be admitted intoand discharged from the vessel by flotation.

In the transportation of cargoes by sea there has in recent years beenan increasing emphasis on so-called container ships", that is a cargovessel capable of transporting floatable containers such as barges,lighters and the like. Vessels of this type were conceived with two mainpurposes in mind, namely on the one hand to be able to load and unloadthe cargo in form of large units (e.g., complete barges, lighters, etc.)and on the other hand to be able to carry out loading and unloadingoperations independently of dock and harbor installations. With thistype of vessel the containers are floated from land to the cargo vessel,or vice versa. The movement of the containers may be under their ownpower source or the containers may be pulled or pushed by a tug or thelike. The vessel itself may be anchored far out in a harbor or it may,for instance, be anchored off the coast in a region where a harbor isnot present, but where, for example, an inland waterway merges into theocean so that the containers can be either brought down the waterwayfrom inland and loaded aboard the vessel, or can be unloaded from thevessel and moved directly up the waterway to inland regions.

Among the container ships known from the prior art it has been proposedto provide portal cranes or similar installations which can move alongthe upper deck of the vessel and are capable of lifting loads on theorder of 500 tons or more, so that they can pluck the barges out ofthewater or deposit them in the water, in the region of the stern of thevessel. This, however, necessitates high installation costs, andundesired shifts in the trim of the vessel every time a barge is eitherloaded or unloaded, cannot be precluded. Also relatively long loadingand unloading times are involved and it is difficult if not impossibleto stow the barges independently on several vertically spaced decks.

A further prior-art construction forms the hull of its vessel in theregion of the stem with gates through which the barges can float intoand out of the hull. Within the hull the barges are engaged by a liftingsystem which uses synchronously driven winches, and are raised orlowered depending on whether they are to be loaded or unloaded. Duringloading, and on reaching the level of the deck on which the respectivebarge is to be stowed, the barge is deposited on a hydraulicallyoperated carriage which moves along deck rails and is then dragged onthis carriage into the interior of the ship where it is deposited at adesired place, whereupon the carriage returns to receive the next barge.This construction of course requires an even longer time for loading andunloading than the preceding type, and constant changes in the trim ofthe vessel are impossible to prevent.

Still another prior-art proposal has been to float the barges from thesurrounding body ofwater directly into the hull of the vessel to theposition at which they are to be stowed for transportation, andsubsequently to reverse this process for unloading purposes. It is knownto provide an entrance tunnel at one end ofsuch a vessel, and topartially (but not completely) submerge the vessel until the level ofwater in the entrance tunnel is sufficiently high so that a barge can befloated through the tunnel. The tunnel communicates with a loading deckso that, the vessel becomes partly submerged, the deck is also floodedat the same time as the tunnel is flooded. This construction isobjectionable because when such a vessel is flooded, a near-total lossof the stability of the vessel is experienced. Moreover, the floodingand subsequent evacuation of the vessel is, of course, also timeconsuming, and the prior art permits the loading of barges and theirsubsequent discharge only with respect to a single deck ofthe vessel,thus severely limiting the cargo-carrying capability of the vessel.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It is thus an object of the present inventionto provide an improved marine cargo vessel which overcomes thedisadvantages of the prior art.

In particular, it is an object of the present invention to provide animproved marine cargo vessel for the transportation of floatablecontainers, wherein the con tainers can be moved by flotation betweenthe level of the waterline and the level of one or more cargo decks ofthe vessel without, however, requiring any degree of submergence of thevessel.

An object concomitant with the preceding one is to provide such a marinecargo vessel in which neither the stability of the vessel in the waternot the safety of the vessel are in danger during the loading orunloading of the cargo by means of flotation, as is, for instance, thecase where prior-art vessels must be partially submerged in the ambientbody of water for loading and unloading purposes. This includes therequirement that the initial stability of the vessel must not be allowedto deteriorate or become negated as would be the case if the vessel wereto be partially submerged.

In keeping with the above objects, and with others which will becomeapparent hereafter, one feature of the invention resides in a marinecargo vessel which, briefly stated, comprises hull means having aninside, an outside and a waterline to which it is submerged in anambient body of water. Deck means is located inside the hull means andat least in part constructed as floodable basin means located at a leveldifferent from that of the waterline. Means is provided which define afloodable upright shaft in the hull means, with such shaft extendingthrough the deck means. Gate means is provided at the level of thewaterline and of the deck means for communicating the interior of theshaft with the ambient body of water and with the basin means,respectively. Finally, means is provided for raising and lowering thelevel of the body of water in the shaft between the level of thewaterline and the level of the basins means, to permit conveyance offloatable containers by flotation between the waterline and the basinmeans, and vice versa.

The invention can be utilized in a single-hull vessel, if care is takento avoid a possibility of changes in the trim of the vessel duringfloating of the containers from the shaft onto the respective decks, andvice versa. The invention can also be use with vessels of the trimarantype, and it is particularly well suited for use with catamaran-typevessels, that is vessels having two transversely spaced hulls which areconnected rigidly with one another.

The novel features which are considered as characteristic for theinvention are set forth in particular in the appended claims. Theinvention itself. however, both as to its construction and its method ofoperation, together with additional objects and advantages thereof, willbe best understood from the following description of specificembodiments when read in connection with the accompanying drawing.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIG. I. is a diagrammatic top-plan viewillustrating one embodiment of the invention as incorporated in acatamaran-type cargo vessel;

FIG. 2 is a diagrammatic vertical section through FIG. 1, taken on lineII-II;

FIG. 3 is a fragmentary diagrammatic detail view on an enlarged scale,illustrating in partially sectioned elevation details of the gatescommunicating the shaft with the decks;

FIG. 4 is a view similar to FIG. 2, but illustrating a furtherembodiment of the invention;

FIG. is a fragmentary partly sectioned perspective illustrating detailsof the embodiment of FIG. 4; and

FIG. 6 is a view similar to FIG. 5,'but illustrating a furtherembodiment of the invention.

DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Referring firstly to FIGS. 1and 2, it will be seen that reference numeral 1 identifies acatamaran-type vessel per se. The vessel has two hulls 2 which aretransversely spaced from one another and are connected rigidly by meansof a so-called catamaran bridge which is well known in this art andrequires no detailed description.

The shaft 3 according to the present invention can be located at any ofthe heavy-line positions as shown in FIG. 1, or indeed a shaft 3 can belocated at any or each and every one of these locations. Referencenumeral 4 designates a plurality of spaces at each of which a container5 (e.g., a barge, a lighter, or the like) can be stowed on either theupper deck 6 which is located above the level 7 of the waterline towhich the hulls 2 are submerged in the ambient body of water, or one ofthe lower decks 9, 10 which are located below the level of the waterline7. The deck 6 can be flooded to a level 8, and each of the decks 9, 10can be similarly flooded. Gates 1], which are shown onlydiagrammatically in FIG. 2, communicate the. respective decks with theinterior of the shaft 3, and suitable pumps 16, for instance theillustrated reversible pumps, gear pumps, centrifugal pumps or the like,can be used for pumping water into and out of the shaft 3 which hasclosed bottom and is sealed from the ambient body of water except foragate 11a which communicates with the ambient body of water at thewaterline 7.

FIG. 3 shows details of the gates 11. It will be seen that each of thegates has a gate member 12 which may, for instance, have the illustratedconfiguration and be pivotally mounted at 13. Thus, each gate member 12can move between the full-line position in which it opens communicationbetween the shaft 3 and the respective decks 6, 9 and 10, and thebroken-line position in which it interrupts such communication.Reference numeral I4 identifies the wall bounding the shaft 3 and thusseparating the interior of the shaft from the respective decks.Reference numeral 15 identifies the openings in the wall 14 which can beclosed by the gate members 12. Seal 12a, for instance hoses or otherexpansible and/or compressible bodies, can be provided which establish aseal between the wall 14 and the respective gate member 12 when thelatter is in its position in which it is to close the opening 15 toprevent communication between the interior of the respective deck andthe interior of the shaft 3.

It will be appreciated that if, for instance, a container 5 is to beunloaded from the deck 6 which is flooded to the level 8 with water, thepumps I6 are used to pump sufficient water into the shaft 3 so that thelevel of water therein rises above the level 7 of the waterline andreaches the level 8 of the water in the deck 6. Thereupon, the gatemember 12 is moved from the broken-line position to the full-lineposition in which communication exists between the deck 6 and theinterior of the shaft 3, and the container which now floats just abovethe deck 6 can be floated out of the latter through the opening 15 intothe shaft 3. The gate member 12 is now closed again, and the pumps areused'(or else appropriate seacocks are opened) so that the level ofwater drops from the level 8 to the level 7 in the shaft 3. Now, thegate Ila, which is shown in FIG. 2 and may correspond in constructionand operation to the gates II of FIG. 3, is opened and the container 5is floated out of the shaft 3 into the ambient body of water.

Conversely, if a container is to be conveyed from the level 7 to thedeck 9 or 10, the gate Ila is opened, the container 5 is floated intothe shaft 3 wherein the level of water is equal to the level 7, and thegate Ila is thereupon closed again. The pumps are now employed to pumpwater out ofthe shaft 3 until the level of water has dropped to thelevel to which the deck 9 or 10 has previously been flooded, whereuponthe gate member 12 associated with the deck 9 or 10 is moved to openposition and the container 5 is floated into the respective deck tobecome deposited thereon in a desired position after the deck issubsequently evacuated of water when the gate member 12 has been movedto closing position again.

Particularly in the case of multiple-hull vessels, such ascatamaran-type vessels, the shaft 3 could interfere with the movement ofthe vessel as the latter travels, in that the shaft might extend to orpossibly below the waterline 7. To avoid such interference, anarrangement of the type diagrammatically illustrated in FIG. 4 may beutilized, wherein the shaft in toto can be raised or lowered between thefull-line position in which cargo can be taken onboard or discharged byflotation, and the raised broken-line position in which the shaft islocated in its entirety upwardly of the waterline 7 and cannot interferewith the movement of the vessel, that is by producing resistance to themovement.

FIG. 5 shows how this concept of FIG. 4 can be carried into practicalapplication. FIG. 5 is a fragmentary detail view of a catamaran-typevessel, such as shown in FIG. 4, but all details not considered to beessential for an understanding of the invention have been omitted. Likereference numerals identify like components as previously, and it willbe seen that in FIG. 5 the shaft 3 is bounded by a wall 17 which isseparate from the wall 14 that has been discussed with respect to FIG.3. Here, the wall 14 will constitute a separation between the respectivedecks and a vertical well in which the shaft 13 defined by the wall 17is vertically displaceable. It is the wall 17 that is provided with theopenings 15, and corresponding openings are provided in the wall 14 andformed with the gates 11 which have been previously described. The wall17 has been diagrammatically and in fragmentary form shown in FIG. 3also, to suggest its location with respect to the wall 14 and to thegates 11. i

A plurality of upright guide posts or members 18 are provided, four inthe illustrated embodiment, between which the shaft 3 can move up anddown. Again, it should be pointed out that the bottom of the shaft 3 isclosed, although its top can be open. In the illustrated embodiment, theupper ends of the guide members 18 are provided with pulleys over whichropes or cables are trained which are connected with the shaft 3. Theother ends of these ropes or cables 20 may be connected with appropriatewinches or the like (not shown because entirely conventional) that canbe utilized to raise and lower the shaft 3 between the two positionsshown in FIG. 4.

It is emphasized that the entire purpose in raising and lowering theshaft 3 in FIG. 5 is to withdraw it sufficiently far from the waterline7 so that it cannot interfere with the proper motion of the vessel. Theraising and lowering has nothing whatever to do with the load ing andunloading of cargo, which is still to be carried out by flotation in themanner described previously with respect to the preceding Figures.

In lieu of the pulleys 19 and the ropes or cables 20, the upright guidemember 18 could be hollow and closed against the entry of water.Floatable pontoons or similar members could be incorporated in eachofthem and the pumps 16 could be connected with the interior of theguide members 18 downwardly of these pontoons to pump water into theguide members 18 so as to cause the pontoons to rise. The pontoons wouldthen be rigidly connected (e.g., via appropriate slots in the walls ofthe guide members 18, or the like) with the shaft 3, so that the latterwould be raised as water would be pumped into the guide members 18beneath the pontoons, causing the latter to rise and take along theshaft 3. Again, hydraulic cylinder and piston units or the like could beemployed for the same purpose.

FIG. 6, finally, is largely similar to FIG. 5, but illustrates asomewhat different embodiment wherein the shaft 3 is of two telescopableparts 21a and 21b. The upper part 21a is fixedly mounted, for instanceagain on the post 18, and the lower part 21b is telescopable withreference to the upper part 21a. The cables 20 could be connected withthe lower part 21b and only the lower part would need to be raised andlowered.

It should still be pointed out that details ofa floatable pontoonconstruction that could be used in conjunction with the embodiments ofFIGS. 5 and 6 are described with respect to FIG. 6 of our aforementionedcopending application.

It will be understood that each of the elements described above, or twoor more together, may also find a useful application in other types ofconstructions differing from the type described above.

While the invention has been illustrated and described as embodied in amarine cargo vessel, it is not intended to be limited to the detailsshown, since various modifications and structural changes may be madewithout departing in any way from the spirit of the present invention.

Without further analysis, the foregoing will so fully reveal the gist ofthe present invention that others can by applying current knowledgereadily adapt it for various applications without omitting featuresthat. from the standpoint of prior art, fairly constitute essentialcharacteristics of the generic or specific aspects of this inventionand, therefore. such adaptations should and are intended to becomprehended within the meaning and range of equivalence of thefollowing claims.

What is claimed as new and desired to be protected by Letters Patent isset forth in the appended claims.

1. A marine cargo vessel, comprising hull means having an inside, anoutside and a waterline to which it is submerged in an ambient body ofwater; deck means located inside said hull means and at least in partconstructed as floodable basin means located at a level different fromthat of said waterline; means defining a floodable upright shaft in saidhull means and extending through said deck means; gate means at thelevel of said waterline and said deck means for communicating theinterior of said shaft with said ambient body of water and with saidbasin means, respectively; and means for raising and lowering the levelof a body of water in said shaft between the level of said waterline andthe level of said basin means, whereby to permit conveyance of fioatablecontainers by flotation between said waterline and said basin means andvice versa.

2. A marine cargo vessel as defined in claim 1, wherein said deck meanscomprises a plurality of decks, at least one of which is located at alevel higher than the level of said waterline.

3. A marine cargo vessel as defined in claim 1, wherein said hull meanscomprises at least two transversely spaced connected hulls.

4. A marine cargo vessel as defined in claim 3, wherein said shaft islocated intermediate said hulls.

5. A marine cargo vessel as defined in claim 4; and further comprisingmeans for vertically displacing at least a part of said means definingsaid shaft between a first position in which a lower end portion of saidshaft is submerged between said waterline for conveying of floatablecontainers, and a second position in which said lower end portion islocated upwardly spaced from said waterline to prevent interference withthe travel of said vessel.

6. A marine cargo vessel as defined in claim 5, wherein said means forvertically displacing comprises a plurality of upright guide membersadjacent said shaft, and connecting means connecting said shaft definingmeans with said guide members and operative for effecting said verticaldisplacement between said first and second positions.

7. A marine cargo vessel as defined in claim 6, wherein said shaft iscomposed of an upper first portion and a lower second portion which istelescopable with reference to said upper first portion; and whereinsaid connecting means connects at least said lower first portion withsaid guide members.

:k #k l t IK

